Scores of NHS hospitals across England are failing to protect patients' dignity and to meet basic standards of cleanliness and care, Commission warns.

"Scores of NHS hospitals across England are failing to protect patients' dignity and to meet basic standards of cleanliness and care, the government's health watchdog warned today in its annual check of conditions on the wards.

The Healthcare Commission found 30% of inpatients have to share bathrooms or shower areas with the opposite sex, in spite of government guidance that the practice is upsetting, particularly to women.

It identified a handful of trusts where most patients have to wash in mixed-sex facilities, which rarely exist in public buildings outside the health service and which ministers claimed to have eradicated. At St Mary's teaching hospital in central London, 59% of patients shared mixed-sex bathrooms.

The commission's huge survey of 80,000 inpatients' experiences also found that 20% of people who could not eat without assistance said they did get enough help. This rose to 42% at Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup.

The report found 30 trusts where at least 20% of patients said the quality of meals was poor, rising to 32% at Queen Mary's Sidcup and at North Middlesex hospital in Edmonton, north London.

Across England, 15% of inpatients said it took staff more than five minutes to respond to an emergency call button, rising to 39% at Queen Mary's Sidcup."

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